High-ranking city officials are in for a hefty raise under a proposed budget for next year. But KETV NewsWatch 7 has learned a few of those raises went into effect months ago.

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City Council members said they're surprised that raises they thought were under consideration for 2013 are already in place.

Mayor Jim Suttle's proposed budget includes $25,000 raises for two members of his administrations, but Chief of Staff Steve Oltmans and Finance Director Pam Spaccarotella received the increases seven months ago.

In addition, Public Works Director Bob Stubbe got a $9,000 raise on Jan. 1.

Now, the City Council president is asking why request a pay increase that's already been granted.

Council member Jean Stothert and City Council President Tom Mulligan said they found a trail of evidence they did not like.

"We decided we'd ask for the payroll records, and discovered they were getting paid a lot more than we approved in the 2012 budget," Stothert said.

"I'm kind of surprised the mayor didn't share this with us," Mulligan said.

Mulligan said he requested payroll records as part of the budget verification process.

Those records showed Oltmans and Spacarotella both got raises that weren't approved in this year's budget. Those raises had been requested, however, for 2013.

The documents showed a similar situation for Stubbe.

"The salary increases had been given out Jan. 1, 2012," Mulligan said.

Mulligan is raising eyebrows for a number of reasons.

"I don't feel like we're being very transparent," he said. "To come across as if these were proposed raises when, in fact, they've already been given? That doesn't match up."

Suttle is out of the country on a business trip, so KETV NewsWatch 7 asked his spokeswoman to confirm the numbers.

Aida Amoura insists there was no ill intent.

"He's not hiding anything," Amoura said. "The mayor felt this was warranted to give them money that was in the budget. It was in the budget. We didn't go over the budget to do that."

Amoura said the mayor felt Spaccarotella's work in keeping the city financially stable and Oltmans' extra efforts to help the parks department fight last year's flood deserved to be rewarded.

"In all fairness, you know what? This was not a very good political move," Amoura admitted.

Mulligan said the mayor now has some questions to answer.

"My biggest hope is that the mayor would explain exactly what transpired," Mulligan said.

Taxpayer watchdog Doug Kagan said the raises are unfair to city workers.

"And they don't get any merit pay, or performance pay, but the mayor's favorites do," Kagan said.

Councilman Ben Gray said the mayor should have explained the situation months ago.

"I wish I had known about it," Gray said.

He also said that the mayor's logic for the raises might not be inappropriate.

"I think I understand his reasoning behind it, and that is if you want to keep good people, you have to pay good people," he said.

Omaha mayoral candidate Dave Nabity said the raises are wrong.

"To be throwing this kind of money around for a real select group of people just doesn't look right. To me, it's wrong," he said.

State Sen. Brad Ashford said better communication could help avoid such situations.

"We need to have a stronger, tighter relationship between the Council and the mayor's office on many, many issues, and this sort of underlines what is clearly there, which is a massive gap," Ashford said.